Black History Month and "A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin"

As part of Black History Month and the ongoing lessons for ESL and the STAAR writing classes, I used Jen Bryant's book A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin (illustrated by Melissa Sweet). This is a wonderful story about a young man who is a talented artist, but becomes injured during World War I. He is not able to paint when he returns from the war until he finds a way to express himself again and regain his strength.

I printed off copies of his first major work after his injury and the ESL students pasted it into their booklets to refer to at a later time.

http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2013/02/25/the-life-and-work-of-horace-pippin/

The students really enjoyed the story and found many points of interest they could write about. When we were done reading, I gave them all iPads and had them complete an Infuse Learning Draw Response activity. They had to draw a picture from the story that was important to them, to the reading, or something that stood out that they remembered. We then posted the drawings from the projector for everyone to see and discuss what was drawn.

It was fun to do something beside write about the story we had read, and I was amazed at some of the detail the students put into their art.